


The Butterfly Dream

by orphan_account



Series: Vampire AU-Second Storyline [6]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Crossover between Vampire AU and the real world, Deniss dreamed a dream, Gen, Might be very confusing, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25517221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Deniss had a dream and woke up nostalgic.
Series: Vampire AU-Second Storyline [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895323
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	The Butterfly Dream

**Author's Note:**

> *The Butterfly Dream is from an ancient Chinese philosophy text called Zhuangzi. A man fell asleep and dreamt about being a butterfly; when he woke up, he couldn’t tell whether he’s a man being a butterfly in his dream, or he’s a butterfly and being a man in his dream.  
> *All the people in Deniss’s dream (i.e. the people in our real world) has quotation marks around their names. All names without quotation marks are people in the vampire AU.  
> *I added Alexia to the storyline. She’s a half-werewolf-half-nymph.  
> *I'm back with another piece of unbeta'd late night writing (yay!)

A loud noise woke Deniss up. He rubbed his eyes and realized he didn’t close the window before going back to sleep, and apparently the wind wasn’t quite happy with it. He rolled himself out of bed and attempted to close the window without drawing the curtain open – but a burning sensation immediately hit him. 

He reflexively withdrew his hand and his brain started to clear up. The sun’s not down yet, and he remembered he’s not supposed to come into contact with it. Afterall, he is a vampire. Luckily it’s already close to dusk and his window faced east, so the pain quickly subsided without leaving any visible marks. 

He rubbed his eyes again, yawned and decided to go and splash his face with some cold water. He woke up only slightly than he used to, and half an hour wouldn’t hurt. He could potentially read a few recipes and choose one for this weekend’s gathering.

He looked at himself in the mirror and wiped his face dry. He knew what he looked like. Vampires don’t usually show signs of aging like other species do, apart from their hair. Their hair do turn silvery or gray as time goes. And that person in his dream, or rather, ‘himself’ in his dream, looked almost exactly like that, only a few hundred years younger, with blond hair and shinier eyes.

And all other people in his dream looked exactly the same as someone in his long life at a particular point. The ‘Stephane’ looked like Stephane at early 21th century when he just started to live in the castle. The ‘Koshiro’ looked like Koshiro in the early Champéry years. The ‘Alexia’ looked like Alexia when she first arrived in Europe. And there were many other people who he just had a glance in the dream, and he was sure he had crossed path with them in his real life.

“Strange dream.” Deniss murmured while going into the kitchen to get himself some breakfast. It felt so real as he could smell the flowers and feel the coldness of the ice. He spent a lot of time on a rink, doing all types of elements, getting up again and again. The only strange thing is that he could walk under the sun without getting literally burnt, and it wasn’t painful at all. The only thing that hurts was when he fell onto the ice in his dream.

Deniss took out a bag of dark red liquid from the fridge, counted the remaining bags in the fridge and added it to his shopping list on the fridge door. He had heard about how Stephane and Chris started their relationship a few hundred years ago, although it’s quite some romantic material, he wouldn’t think it’s a good idea.

The bag went into a machine, and he opened the cupboard to look for suitable tableware. It can be drank straight from the bag with a straw, and many working vampires chose to have it on the go. But he had time and he would like to treat a meal seriously. He had been doing it for almost all his life, and he didn’t know whose influence it was. Maybe it could be traced back to Stephane again. A wine glass seemed inappropriate for breakfast, so he looked at the shelf for mugs. He took one out from his collection, and realized it has the castle painted on it. A gift from the Chillon museum staff. He took the bag from his machine, poured the liquid into the mug, brought it to the table with his recipe book and started to have his breakfast.

He was introduced to this synthetic liquid almost two hundred years ago. He, like most vampires living now, had been using this as his main, if not only, source of energy for most of his life. Any memories of blood from living things is distant for him. He had a tough childhood, crossing a half of continental Europe in freezing winter; he was separated from his family en route, going from tribe to tribe, only getting blood from small animals which was barely enough to keep him alive; when he was brought into a castle, he tried human blood for the first time. And after that, his life had become inseparable from the two owners of the castle. 

Even after being introduced to this synthetic liquid, he still had occasionally had blood from living things, or actually, living intelligence species.

In the days of their exile, when they weren't able to secure this unique energy source for the vampires, their friends and colleagues volunteered for them. It's hard for the vampires in the base, knowing that they're essentially exploiting their friends and allies, not to mention the somewhat embarrassing side-effects.

“You owe me a cake, Deniss,” Alexia once told him while pressing a gauze dressing to her upper arm and grimacing a little bit because of the sting, “I'm going to charge you for this – don’t worry, you can pay later.” The young werewolf-nymph lady grinned before bursting into laughter, “I hope you're feeling better?”

At that time, they had more food for werewolves and humans than vampires. But a cake is still difficult, especially in terms of Deniss's baking. But he still managed to get a very basic cake for the group. “I'm going to get you another better one when it gets better – when I can get my hands on some cream and chocolate.” Deniss saw Alexia running up and down to get everyone and breaking the small cake share among them, “Don't judge it. It doesn't show my full potential.”

And he had cooked meat for Shoma, trying to make the worst cut juicy and tasty; he took care of the potatoes and an assortment of vegetables planted by Koshiro in their garden; he knocked on Matilda's bedroom door with a tray of improvised cinnamon bun when she was having a bad day, sitting with her on the ground and eating directly from the tray using fingers.

Back in the days, they didn't have much, but they shared what they have; they had a lot of work to do, but they worked together as a team; they were in constant danger, but they looked after each other and had each other's back. It wasn't something that he would like to experience ever again, but it was also something he cherished deep in mind. He had friends and colleagues who were trustworthy and kind, he had someone to speak to whenever in doubt, and he knew that he's never alone.

And he smiled while his mind went back to the bizarre dream. There's no vampire, no zombies and no nymphs; werewolves only exist in games. They lived at the base of mountains, travelling around the world for their dreams, cooked together, worked together. They called Alexia 'wolfie' when she won a game with a sly grin, they voted Stephane out first in the said game every time despite his protests, they hiked up to take in the marvelous view together.

Deniss rinsed his mug and put it down. Maybe the people in his dream – 'That Deniss' and his friends' lives seemed to be too tranquil and almost unremarkable as compared to his own, but he's sure that they'll have their their own laughter, their own tears, own struggles and their own fights. The wind and his screeching window stopped him from seeing more of their lives, but he's curious. And he hoped that it would be a good dream and a story worth reading.

He folded a corner to mark the recipe he intended to try for this weekend and started to write down ingredients on his shopping list. He’ll make the trip to supermarket later when the sun is down and start to prepare it tomorrow when he woke up. It isn’t a time consuming recipe, and he’ll be able to get it ready for the gathering in early evening.

He put the recipe book back, washed the mug and went upstairs into his home office to start his work. He’s working on the third volume of Stephane’s biography, after having encountered his writer’s block – or actually, historian’s block in the earlier volume. He is still constantly thinking about the ways to tell the story.

He turned his computer on, opened his notes and started to read them before actually getting down to writing. 

“Group based in Champéry – main connections with JPN, (lost later and reestablished), RUS & East. Eu. in the beginning. Later with the Americas via Alexia and Camden.”

He stared at the word ‘Champéry’. He’s familiar with the name and the place, as he had lived there for almost fifty years during their exile and though the early stage of the European Resistance. But this word was also in his dream.

Deniss leaned back in his armchair and closed his eyes. He was wearing a pair of skates and walking to a sports complex. It says ‘Palladium de Champéry’ at the entrance.

And he’d meet that ‘Stephane’ by the rink. That ‘Stephane’ wears a necklace, and it was incredibly similar to the one hanging in front of his desk. A golden cross with a rounded pendant.

Deniss signed, squeezed his eyes tightly close and opened them again. He stared at the golden cross for a while and sat up to continue reading his notes.

It’s a strange dream indeed.


End file.
